CCCC-IP

The Intellectual Property Caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication would like to invite all CCCC attendees to participate in this year's caucus event:

View the agenda.

The CCCC-IP website will be upgraded over the next 24 hrs. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Note: I've attached the document to this post; if you click "read more," you can see where to download it. Also: I didn't write these; I'm just the messenger.

What we discussed...

I. The IP caucus should publish an edited collection of IP/comp issues/work emerging from the caucus. Volunteer editors: Sally Chandler, Lisa Maruca, Wendy Austin, Gary Thompson—we will continue discussions of this in June. We would like to find a publisher who will create both a book and an online version.

II. Pedagogy not prosecution: Statement on Intellectual Property Issues Raised by Plagiarism Detection Services

Note: I didn't write these; I'm just the messenger.

Minutes from IP Caucus Group / Action Items

Our group largely focused on the shifting meanings of plagiarism and intellectual property across disciplines. Because these meanings vary so widely, students can end up confused around issues of citation, plagiarism, and intellectual property.

This problem is compounded by the nature of institutional writing in which, for example, someone else writes speeches for the president of a university. Who owns that writing?

The group discussed strategies for teaching these issues:

1.Let students know that what you’re teaching about plagiarism is discipline-specific.

John Logie began the CCCC Intellectual Property Caucus with a tribute to Candace Spigelman, co-chair of the Caucus, who passed away last year. Candace never lost sight of students in the process of talking about rhetoric and intellectual property. Institutions are here for the benefit of students. He set up a Candace Spigelman Memorial Fund, which will benefit the Caucus. Directions on how to contribute to the fund will be on the web site soon. Then he reviewed the MGM v. Grokster case and explained why we, as rhetoricians, should take an interest in it. He held up two sheets of paper, one in each hand, that said, "THE INTERNET IS A PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK." The Grokster case, he argued, represents the threat of suppressing technologies that merely have the potential to be used for copyright infringement. Jeff Galin (I think) posed these questions: Can we engage our students to get active in this as well? Can we imagine ways that free use and fair use might intersect? What roles are we going to play to challenge Congress and the entertainment industry?

On December 17, 2004, Candace Spigelman, longtime contributor to and then current co-chair of CCCC-IP died unexpectedly. In many ways, Candace was the ideal leader for the Caucus. More so than most, her scholarship was grounded in particular attention to the needs, expectations, and (mis)undertandings of individuals (especially students) as they work to establish themselves as writers. This is reflected in her books, "Across Property Lines" and the recently released "Personally Speaking: Experience as Evidence in Academic Discourse." At the time of her death, she had a number of projects underway. Some will be published in the coming months. Others will be completed by her many collaborators in the fields of composition and rhetoric. Some, inevitably, will never be completed, underscoring our loss.

Those of us who worked with Candace came to know her as a particularly engaged and committed colleague. Her leadership of the Caucus was marked by a blend of enthusiasm and efficiency. During her tenure, the Caucus continued its program of annual meetings addressing the intersections of composition and intellectual property, celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2004. Candace contributed mightily to the Caucus' move to its new Saturday workshop model, and to securing 2005's plenary session with Lawrence Lessig (chaired by CCCC-IP co-founder Andrea Lunsford)

After discussing an appropriate memorial with her family, the Caucus has determined to establish the Candace Spigelman Memorial Fund in support of the activities of CCCC-IP. Candace often bemoaned how constrained the Caucus was because of its lack of an operating budget that might be used to reinforce its efforts. Funds will be used to support the Caucus' web presence, to encourage graduate student participation in the Caucus workshop, and to generally enhance the Caucus' ability to educate teachers and students about the relationship between I.P. policies and the teaching of writing.

Nels Highberg wrote a beautiful eulogy for Spigelman that I thought people would appreciate.